Oracle of NY

Transformation

Once we had spoken about the interview process, Paloma advised me to rewrite my resume in a non-chronological transferable skills format.

“Oh no, not again,” I thought. I had reformatted my resume countless times before.

“All my skills are transferable,” I told Paloma, “but nobody seems to understand that. They want people with the exact experience and skill set for the job description.”

“That is exactly why you have to make a non-chronological transferable skills resume,” she responded.

I was initially resistant but Paloma was insistent. She said it would help me find a job—and did not stop telling me so.

I spent several days on the first draft of my transferable skills resume and by time I was finished, I was transformed. It was my a-ha moment when my resume, job search, career management and self-perception in general turned from black-and-white to color.

If I had been reluctant to take my self-appointed career coach’s advice before, after writing my new non-chronological transferable skills resume, I was hooked by Paloma’s charisma, intelligence and determination—and by what I quickly coined as the Paloma Method.

What would I have done without my coach? Would I have gotten my job at a midtown accounting firm? Would I have ended up somewhere else? Would I still be unemployed?

When I asked Paloma why she had reached out to me, she did not hesitate to answer, “I followed your story and could not believe that after all your publicity, you could still not find a job. I could not believe that no one was helping you. This is America! I knew that I could help you, so I contacted you.”

She also told me that if my integrity had not shined through my sign board story and had not been reaffirmed by her conversations with me, she would not have given me fifteen seconds of her time.

“Character is not something that can be taught,” she said.

The Mantra and the Promise

As I had a couple of interviews coming up, my self-appointed career coach started advising me on how to prepare for interviews and how to follow up.

She convinced me I needed to put much more effort into preparation and much more effort into following up after my interview. I had been so busy applying to as many jobs as I could, I was not preparing as well as I could or following up as much as I should for the most relevant leads. If I did not get a response from one or two calls or emails, I usually let the lead slide and that was the end of it.

With most of my resume submissions and job applications, I was not even including a cover letter—or if I did, it was brief and generic.

Paloma advised me to take a more targeted and custom-made approach. Every communication, especially the first contact with each potential employer had to be fresh, personalized and effective.

I was used to doing some preliminary research about the companies and people I contacted, but I did not take the time to apply what I learned in crafting a position-specific resume and cover letter.

I was also not following up appropriately—and that is where a little additional effort can make a huge amount of difference.

Paloma advised me to think hard and long about each company to which I applied and explain to them how I could contribute to their success.

“There are only three things that your potential employer wants to hear,” she told me. “How you can make them money, how you can save them money and how you can solve their problems. If you can tell them that—I promise they will hire you.”

She told me to keep those three things in mind in all my communications—and promised I would find a job. “That is the mantra,” she said. ”I can make you money. I can save you money. I can solve your problems.”

Career Management

According to Paloma’s email, she had read my story in the New York Times, was a career coach and promoted a web site for career management called JibberJobber.com. She asked me to take a look at the web site and tell her what I thought.

I took a quick look at JibberJobber.com, liked what I saw and also noticed that the founder of the site Jason Alba had written a book I’m on LinkedIn Now What???

I was on LinkedIn and making occasional connections, but I wondered if there was a better way to use the professional networking site to find a job.

I responded to Paloma, and she sent me a page of tips concerning LinkedIn, inquired how my job search was going and told me I had to start managing my career. “Shift your thinking from job search to career management,” she wrote. When you change your thought process, you change your strategies. You are in control of managing a long-term endeavor, not merely a job replacement. When you accept this paradigm shift, it resonates in your interview sessions.”

Over my lifetime, my MIT degree and family connections have opened doors for me. I was fortunate enough to have a succession of higher and higher paying jobs—but I never had a career. I rode a roller coaster of challenging new jobs and eventual disappointments and was lucky that after each sharp decent, there was a swift and dynamic ascent. However, I never had a long-term career goal. If anything, I was an expert at changing careers.

Manage my career?

After nine months of unemployment, including over two months of international fame, the concept resonated strongly within me. Career management was certainly something I had not accomplished for myself and with which I could sorely use help.

Paloma suggested I use JibberJobber.com as a database to organize my contact information, so I signed on and started entering the information regarding my new contacts and active leads. I mentioned to Paloma that I wished someone would help me type in my entire shopping bag full of contact information—because the task was too daunting for me—and Paloma immediately offered to help.

Paloma and I started corresponding by email regularly and then we started talking daily on the telephone. Paloma said she was determined not only to help me find a job,  so that I could get back on my feet and reunite my family, but she said she would also help me take control of my career.

Famous for Being Unemployed

On the verge of desperation, I got inspired and tried something different. I went out to the corner of 50th Street and Park Avenue wearing a sign board advertising my search and contact information. I thought I would hand out some resumes and generate a few new leads.

Once my story and image went viral, it took me hours to sort through the flashflood of calls and emails. Most of the people who contacted me were well-wishers offering prayers and encouragement, but I also was contacted by many people with relevant job leads. Some of the people whom I met on the street also sincerely tried to help me find a job.

Suddenly, as a result of my sign board publicity, I had dozens of calls to return and half a dozen meetings on my calendar.

As the summer progressed and my fame spread, I had many interesting conversations and meetings—and I came close to landing several exciting jobs.

Furthermore, the media loved my story and instead of my publicity flaring up and flaming out just as fast, every time I thought it was over, I would get a call from a major television network, radio show or newspaper requesting another interview.

Each time I thought my fifteen minutes of fame had come and gone, my picture would suddenly and unexpectedly pop up on the main page of Yahoo.com, CNBC.com or CNN.com.

I could tell when something was up, because my cell phone would go into convulsions, and I would get a flurry of emails from people telling me where they had seen my picture and wishing me good luck finding a job.

When I was interviewed on Fox and Friends, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNN, the newscasters all touched me with their warmth and sincerity and said they wanted to help me find a job. They didn’t make promises but strongly hinted that I would find a job within hours or days as a result of their interview—and told me to keep in touch with them to let them know how things turned out.

I was overwhelmed by their concern and efforts, and my expectations soared with each exciting interview.

As a result of the publicity, I received hundreds of calls and emails—but a job offer remained elusive. I had everything going for me—including the help of major television networks, newspapers and popular Internet sites—but I couldn’t make anything happen.

Was I jinxed?

Then I received an email from Paloma Bowland.

Photography - and Private Lessons for Children and Adults

A Convenient Time to Meet

As part of my networking efforts, whenever I could, I tried to meet with people. That was my goal, as I knew it was the most effective way to find a job. Whenever I contacted people, whether by email or telephone, I asked, “When is a convenient time to meet?”

It is amazing how difficult it can be to arrange a simple meeting. Some people seem to always have time for meetings, but most people are so busy, they barely ever have time for even a single meeting, spontaneous or not. I arranged meetings whenever I could, but often it took weeks or even months to find a convenient time—if my contact was willing to meet at all.

I also attended professional networking events and presentations sponsored by the International Association of Financial Engineers (IAFE), Professional Risk Managers International Association (PRMIA) and the MIT Sloan Club of New York.

The presentations and panels were usually interesting, but sometimes I just did not speak with anyone other than the person sitting next to me.

At successful events, however, I had captivating conversations with at least several small groups of people over wine and cheese and went home with half a dozen or more business cards and plenty of follow-up work for the next day.

I thought I was doing all the right things—networking, making calls and sending out hundreds of resumes—but I still could not find a job.

Nyetworking

In addition to my online efforts, I tried to call at least several people every day—and my shopping bag full of contact information I had collected over the years was a great resource. It usually took a bit longer than planned to find anything specific for which I was looking, but after sifting though a stack of old emails or a rubber-banded pile of business cards, I could usually locate the sought after name and telephone number.

More often than not, I would just sift through the organized chaos, pulling out the names and numbers of people whom I thought it might be worth calling.

In retrospect, I wish I had been more disciplined about organizing and recording my collection of contact information.

To supplement my own online and calling initiatives, I also networked regularly over the telephone. My family, especially my mother, supplied me with new leads on an almost daily basis—and those leads often started with a friendly call which was a lot more pleasant than making a cold call.

When I made cold calls, I usually ended up hearing a recorded message, and when I did get to speak with the person I was trying to reach—or more often than not, with their assistant—they would invariably tell me to email my resume. I would actually feel great hearing that, as if they were telling me they would give me some consideration—but I did not get any better results from the resumes I forwarded after cold calls, than from the resumes I launched coldly into cyberspace.

Lost in Cyberspace

When I had lost my job at Houlihan Lokey, I thought I had known exactly what to do—and that’s what I did. I updated my resume, signed on to numerous job search boards, compiled lists of companies to contact and took out my shopping bag full of business cards, old emails, notebooks and pieces of scrap paper containing the contact information of professional colleagues and acquaintances.

I had been through the job-hunting routine before—and although it had never been an easy process—I had always managed to succeed on my own or with a little help from my family and friends.

I did not think there was anything new anyone could tell me about how to find a job. My resume was strong. I knew I had to network among family, friends and professional peers. I was not completely comfortable making cold calls, but I knew it had to be done and was actually pretty successful at engaging potential employers once I had them on the line. I was not at all comfortable leaving telephone messages for complete strangers—but that is how cold calls often start out.

On the other hand, I was completely comfortable sending emails to anyone and everyone—and I knew it was a numbers game. The more people I could get to look at my resume, the better my chances of finding a job.

Although I disliked having to retype my personal information for each different job site and online application, it was still an efficient way to find leads and apply for jobs. On some sites, I could apply to job after job with a few clicks of the mouse.

On a typical day, I would do some research and apply to half a dozen targeted jobs online, but sometimes I would get enthused and blindly apply to a dozen jobs of all sorts with a last minute, end of the day flurry of emails and online activity.

I knew I would be lucky to get one response out of a hundred emails and virtual applications, but I kept trying—and I usually got that one response. Even if my applications for specific jobs were not fully targeted, I sometimes got responses and established new relationships with recruiters or potential employers after forwarding my resume or applying for a position online.

Nevertheless, ninety-nine percent of my emailed resumes and online job applications seemed to evaporate into cyberspace. Even when I applied to highly relevant jobs on the job board of my alma mater, the MIT Sloan Alumni Job Board, I rarely received a response. I was excited about the positions and had the required experience—but no one ever seemed to be on the receiving side of my emails and online applications or be available to speak when I called.

ScanBizCards - iPhone App

I've jumped on the iPhone applications bandwagon and am promoting an app that lets you conveniently scan business cards with your iPhone - ScanBizCards. We're getting lots of downloads a day for the free version and are moving up the ranks in the iTunes Store. We are looking for further publicity and advertising partners.

Unlike competing iPhone business card scanning applications:

• ScanBizCards is the only iPhone business card scanning application offering a free version that lets you try the core functionality before you decide to upgrade.
• ScanBizCards acknowledges that OCR is not perfect, so the image of the business card is always displayed side-by-side with the textual information to facilitate editing.
• Cards scanned by ScanBizCards have one-touch accelerators which can be used to instantly place calls, send emails, browse web sites, invite contacts to connect via LinkedIn and send follow-up reminders to your calendar.

ScanBizCards is better than a dedicated scanner:

• ScanBizCards does not have to be connected to a PC when you photograph/scan cards.
• ScanBizCards interfaces instantly with not just your address book but also with your email, calendar, iPhone and browser.
• ScanBizCards can instantly send a LinkedIn invitation.
• ScanBizCards costs $4.99 versus $60 to $300 for a dedicated business card scanner.
• New and useful features are added at no cost.

If you have an iPhone and collect lots of business cards, ScanBizCards is a great utility.

www.scanbizcards.com

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scanbizcards/id335047649?mt=8
 
Contact: Patrick Questembert
patrick@scanbizcards.com
917 250 4177
 
Joshua Persky
Joshua.persky@sloan.mit.edu
917 650 8700

Hello, It’s Paloma

I have changed careers several times during my life, and it usually took only a few months to find a new job even in a new field of work. However, this time, something was different. Nothing seemed to be working. Over six months had gone by, and I was still unemployed. Not only that, but I was world-famous, and I was still unemployed. What was my problem? What was I doing wrong?

I did not seek professional help while I was unemployed, but I am sure grateful that a professional career coach contacted me.

In response to my publicity, a couple of professional career counselors and resume writers had emailed to say that they could help me find a job. I had tried working with one in the city, but he had been pressed for time and after an energetic initial meeting, neither of us had followed through.

However, Paloma Bowland—a career management coach and business strategist working with JibberJobber.com—was different. She sent me an email telling me about her career management site and then called to tell me what to do. She must have done something right, and I must have needed help, because as the summer progressed, I found myself in daily telephone contact with her, changed my job-hunting paradigm, went through a transformational experience—and found a job.

When Paloma called, she told me she would not only help me find a job but would also help me take charge of my career.

First, she gave me numerous tips on conducting and managing interviews. Next, she convinced me to do a thoughtful self-evaluation and revise my resume. Then she told me to clean up and reorganize my blog, coordinate it with my LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and write newspaper articles.

When I found a job and started working again, Paloma insisted our work was not over—it had only just begun.

Every suggestion she made was a chore and a learning process of self-discovery, but I quickly began to feel a difference, a transformation—a renewed sense of self-confidence and self-esteem. She also gave me plenty of psychological support, helping me remain focused and move forward even when I was feeling down.

Almost immediately after I had revised my resume and developed a new outlook, good things started happening. Not only did I get more positive feedback than before, but I felt much better about myself and was able to start turning job possibilities into solid offers.

Lesson Learned—Be Open to Change!

• When looking for a job, especially in economically challenging times, it helps to be open to change. Perhaps, you will have to do something else, somewhere else, at least for a while in order to survive. You may also be pleasantly surprised where an opportunity may lead you, equally in terms of what kind of work you do, where you do it and whom you meet.

• By being open to change, I found myself investigating many different career opportunities in various locations—so my chances of finding a job increased significantly. It was only by fate that I eventually found a job in my own field and in my own back yard.

• Although you may envision a career as a straight path, it is sometimes necessary and can even be beneficial to take a detour. In a world that is changing faster than a chameleon changes color—and where company and worker loyalty is a thing of the past—it is best not to limit yourself to your own perception of what you think you do—or to limit yourself to other people’s perceptions of what you have already done. You may want to focus on your chosen field, familiar role, core or most recent experience, but you should also consider other possibilities and figure out how you can transfer your skills to a new role.

• When you are unemployed—and even when you are employed—it is worth considering each and every job opportunity. You never know what you may learn, whom you may meet or which door may lead to your ultimate success.

• When searching for a job, you have to be open to change of career, location and people. It is a great time to explore other possibilities, such as starting your own business. At least, ask yourself if you are really satisfied with your job? What is your fantasy job? Is there something else you would rather be doing or that you could possibly do? Is there somewhere else you would rather be living or that you could possibly live?

• Being open to change is not only about being prepared and willing to change your career or move to a new location for the sake of employment, but it also means adjusting to a changing world, being able to adapt the way you live to new circumstances and letting new people into your life.

• When looking for a job, especially during an economic downturn, you have to be patient. It takes time to find leads and follow up on leads. It takes time to arrange interviews and takes time to get answers. It can take a lot longer than you planned to find a job.

• I know it’s difficult to be patient when you are standing in the cold rain without an umbrella. I’ve been there. You have to keep in mind that the storm will pass and the sun will come out tomorrow—or even more importantly—that the sun is always shining above the clouds.

• Don’t take non-responsiveness or rejection personally. Be patient, be persistent and be professional!

Recycle Yourself and Start a New Life

Although I had no idea when the subprime mortgage problem surfaced in the summer of 2007 that it would lead to a global economic crisis, I was close enough to the news to know that when Bear Stearns collapsed, the rules of the game had changed.

I knew that something profound was happening and that if I were going to find a job in New York City, it would take a tremendous effort and a lot of luck. I also was keenly aware of the changes that had taken place in New York City since 9/11. 

Before 9/11, when someone was having a tough time finding a job in the city or was determined to get their foot in the door at a specific company, they could go knocking on doors. They could show up at the main office, chat with the receptionist, camp out, market themselves to any executive they might meet and beg for a job until they were hired or escorted out the door.

Many people in New York City found employment that way as interns, assistants, apprentices or in the mail room. If someone had the skills and determination, they could work their way up.

Subsequent to 9/11, because of security considerations, it was nearly impossible to get inside an office building in New York City unless you were expected—and that is one of the main reasons I decided to hand out resumes on Park Avenue. It was no longer possible to go knocking on doors in the city. How else could I reach out in person to the people who worked at the companies where I wanted to work?

Much of my creative inspiration was due to a specific change that had taken place in the environment. I accepted that change and sensed I had to do something different.

When Cindy and I realized we had to leave our apartment, we did not get choked up or plot to stay until we were evicted. We sucked it up and got ready for change—as painful as it was.

Cindy moved to Omaha with the little ones, and I borrowed enough money to survive for a couple more months in the city while looking for a job and hosting my older children.

At the end of August, when I moved in with my sister’s family in Larchmont, I again adjusted to an entirely new environment.

From the day I was let go from Houlihan Lokey, my life was in constant flux—but I did my best to adjust accordingly.

Another significant change I made was to let Paloma Bowland—a professional career coach—into my life. I had not considered getting professional help on my own and had been called by many people who said they could help me or wanted to take advantage of my desperation, so when she called, I was as skeptical as could be.

Opening yourself to new people, especially when you are down and out, is not easy, but sometimes it can transform the course of your life. I thought I was open to change before I started working with Paloma, but she helped me change the very core of my approach to finding a job and managing my career, while helping me renew my self-esteem and bring out my true colors.

Clinica E.T.

When I saw the international area code for Japan on my cell phone, I hoped it was Dr. Tetsuji Okuno—and it was.

It was difficult for him to fully express himself in English, but his tone was so sincere, he touched my heart and convinced me to visit him.

When I brought up all the practical considerations of moving my family to Yokohama, he told me it was all possible—and we should discuss the details in person.

A few days later, I received an email from Dr. Okuno saying that his colleague Mr. Shinro Takahashi would be visiting New York in the middle of October—and that I should accompany him back to Japan at the end of October. I could meet Dr. Okuno, learn about his cancer research and treatment clinic Clinica E.T., discuss his plans for international expansion and come to an agreement regarding my terms of employment.

I was overwhelmed by the invitation and started to imagine a new life in Yokohama and a new career in health care management. Health care was one of the industries least affected by the global economic crisis—and helping in the fight against cancer was a great motivation. Using the Internet, I started to learn as much as I could about endovascular therapy and anti-angiogenesis.

Although most of my family thought I was out of my mind, my career coach Paloma Bowland thought it was a great opportunity. “Unfortunately,” she said, “cancer treatment and cancer research are a growing market.” She suggested that if I were truly looking for job stability in the coming years of economic challenge, I should give the opportunity some serious thought.

My father was also encouraging. He believed living abroad would be educational for the children. He also recalled the wonderful night he had spent in Yokohama when he was in the army. He had been drafted into the Korean War and dispatched to the Philippines. After two weeks at sea, his ship had landed in the port of Yokohama and all the soldiers had gone on shore leave for some much needed rest and relaxation. For the equivalent of fifty cents, he had enjoyed a fine cut of Kobe beef and a tall glass of Kirin beer. After two weeks of unsavory sea rations, he had been more than pleased. “In fact,” he said. “It is one of my fondest memories of the war.”

Somewhat coincidently, my in-laws’ neighbor in Omaha—Sam Cohen—was a world-renowned cancer research specialist who frequently visited Japan.

I gave him a call—and after doing a little research, he told me that Dr. Okuno had a good reputation and successful clinic but was also considered somewhat of a maverick. He had left the mainstream medical community to follow his own path of research and treatment. Only time would tell whether his work would be dismissed—or if he would be recognized as a genius and win a Noble Prize.

That was confirmation enough for me. The more I thought about it, the more I was intrigued and wanted to accept Dr. Okuno’s invitation. At worst it would be an adventurous journey to the other side of the world. At best, it would be the opportunity of a lifetime.

After much introspection, I wrote to Dr. Okuno, accepted his invitation and asked for a more firm itinerary.

No sooner had I accepted Dr. Okuno’s invitation, when I received a call from Richelle Konian, an executive recruiter with whom I had been in touch for over five years. We had been emailing each other regularly over the course of the summer, starting a couple of months before my sign board publicity. She said she had an opportunity for me in the valuations group at a large midtown accounting firm.

When I expressed strong interest, she said she would forward my resume and told me I should expect an interview with the hiring manager. She said she had enjoyed my publicity and blog—and the hiring manager was looking for someone who could write. “I think it’s a perfect match,” she said.

It’s amazing how events sometimes unfold.

A few days later, I had an encouraging interview with the Director of Valuation and Corporate Finance at a large New York accounting firm—and simultaneously firmed up my plans to visit Dr. Okuno in Yokohama at the end of October.

I did not tell the valuations director or executive recruiter about my planned trip to Japan—or tell Dr. Okuno about my job possibility in New York, because I did not know which, if either, would work out. Both opportunities seemed fantastic.

The Human Factor

In the meantime, my Sandwich Board Guy picture and story continued to spread internationally, especially in France, Germany, Italy, India, Hong Kong and China.

More and more international journalists called me for interviews—and a new flood of emails poured in from around the world.

People started telling me how great things were in China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia.

“Come here and teach English at the university,” they wrote. “Come here, and you will find a job.”

I even received emails from several expatriate Americans describing how wonderful it was to live and work in Shanghai.

Students and unemployed people started reaching out to me for personal advice. “Should I study finance or is that no longer practical?” “Should I put on a sandwich board like you did?”

I was also asked for economic, financial and business analysis, including a request to write an article about who might succeed Warren Buffet at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway and a request to write an article about corporate governance in light of the global economic crisis.

Both articles were subsequently published in prominent Indian business journals—Business & Economy and The Human Factor, respectively.

Several journalists asked me for political analysis. “How do you think the upcoming elections will affect the economy?” “Will you vote for Obama or McCain?”

I was truly becoming a Sign of the Times and the Face of the American Economy—but where in the world was I going to end up?

Shock and Awe on Wall Street

As a result of the Lehman Brothers collapse, the economic environment went from bleak to disastrous. I pretty much gave up on finding a job in the United States and started aggressively pursuing opportunities abroad.

I was soon in touch with a financier from Hong Kong, the Dutch CEO of an international furniture company, the British CEO of an international car parts company, and a Japanese doctor who ran an innovative cancer treatment and research clinic in Yokohama.

The doctor was so convinced that I was the person to help him manage his clinic and spread his research and techniques throughout the world, he said he would fly me to Japan to meet with him.

All of these people told me they had felt compelled to contact me after seeing my picture in the newspaper, on television or on the Internet.

I had already left New York City, would I soon be leaving the United States?

My wife and I discussed the matter and decide we would be willing to relocate abroad for a year or two for the right opportunity—if we could put money in the bank. Many times, if an American company sends someone abroad—or if a foreign company lures someone abroad—they pay for housing and many other living expenses, so the employee can save much of their salary.

Cindy was not very excited about having me pursue an opportunity in Hong Kong or Yokohama as they were on the other side of the world and it would be difficult for her to visit her parents and grandparents in Omaha.

On the other hand, she felt that London or Amsterdam might be viable as long as housing and other major expenses, such as international schools for the children, were covered by the employer.

The Hong Kong financier who contacted me said he helped American companies set up businesses, market products and invest in China. He called from Hong Kong several times, emailed me questions about the global economy and asked me to describe my approach to business development.

When I pressed him for information about his company and business activities, I did not receive an adequate reply, so our communication stopped.

The Dutch CEO of an international furniture company called me from Verona, Italy and then from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. We had several long, enjoyable conversations, and I started to believe I could soon be an international furniture salesman.

His company had a large catalog of reasonably priced, well-designed and high-quality modern furniture which was produced in Indonesia and China—and I would have responsibility for North and South America but would also be a frequent visitor to Holland, Indonesia and China.

The Dutch CEO said he panned to visit the United States in early November, and as soon as he discussed the matter with his partner and firmed up his schedule, we would set up a meeting.

We even got to the point of discussing compensation and sales targets, but then I got caught up in other leads and could not get a confirmation regarding his visit to America. Eventually, our communication fizzled out.

The British CEO of an international car parts company left me an encouraging message and told me to be in contact with his human resources department.

I called and spoke several times with his human resources manager and learned what I could about the company which re-manufactured car parts. It was growing at forty percent a year and expanding all over the world, especially in Africa and Eastern Europe.

I spoke with the CEO briefly a couple of times, but the first time we spoke he said he was too busy to talk at length and said he would call me back—but did not.

The second time he could not talk for more than a few minutes because he was ill with a severe flu.

I tried contacting him and his human resources manager several times after that but could not get a response.

My most unusual and distant international lead turned out to be the one that developed most seriously.

Dr. Tetsuji Okuno initially called me and left a message, but the connection was full of static, so I could not understand his name, message or telephone number.

He then sent me an email that he had seen me on NHK, a major Japanese network and had been impressed by my attitude. He told me to look at his web site—and I was instantly intrigued by his dedication to medical science and cancer research.

We started corresponding by email, and I soon received a call from his English-speaking in-law in Vancouver telling me that he was extending an invitation to me to visit him and his cancer treatment clinic in Yokohama—perhaps in the middle of October.

I was extremely excited and intrigued by the invitation, but my wife and others in my family did not think it was a practical lead to pursue.

Blog Roll

On September 15th, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, turning thousands more bankers into job-seekers, I received a call from a producer at Inside Edition, and a town car arrived at my sister’s house in Larchmont to whisk me to the mid-town television studio for an interview in response to the collapse. It struck me as absurd how at the same time I was penniless and sleeping on my sister’s couch, I was being whisked by a town car to a television studio in New York City. The show was broadcast nationally—and my phone rang non-stop for days.

One of the most exciting calls I received was from an acquaintance—Sharon Gitelle—whom I had not seen since high school. She worked at Forbes.com and invited me to join the “recently launched community of the high quality business and financial bloggers—the Forbes Business and Financial Blog Network.”
I had started a blog only a month and a half before—more about that later—and already I was receiving a blogging seal of approval!

As a result of the Lehman collapse and the worsening financial crisis, as the poster boy for Wall Street, I was subsequently interviewed by news teams representing major Finnish, Belgian and Japanese TV networks—and I conducted off-camera interviews with journalists from Reuters and a German newspaper Rheinische Post.

I was definitely having more success with the media than with my job search. As the summer slipped away, I was getting far more offers for media interviews than for job interviews. I wasn’t getting paid for all the publicity, but the tremendous interest in my story was an indication that I was doing something right—and it was a sign of great things to come.

Loco Tonic

As August drew to a close and my leads and interviews in the New York area and Omaha did not amount to anything solid, I started to spend more and more time focusing on opportunities and contacts elsewhere in the country.

At the beginning of the summer I had willing to move almost anywhere for the right opportunity—but by the end of the end of August I was willing to move anywhere for any opportunity.

Cindy and I wanted to live in New York City or Omaha, but it came to a point where we were willing to go wherever a job would take us.

In mid-August, I had been contacted by a Sloan School of Management student who was doing a summer internship in Plano, Texas at an entrepreneurial firm that was a private equity fund, venture capital firm and hedge fund all rolled into one. He had told me to get in touch with his boss, Charlie Gallamore, the founder of Southwest Texas Capital.

I called Charlie and we had a great conversation which ended with him inviting me to Plano for a meeting.

Coincidently, that same day, I came across an article in the news touting Plano as the most affluent city in the United States—measured with respect to per capita income versus cost of living. I had never thought about moving to Texas but I was suddenly intrigued.

In early September, within days after leaving my sublet in Manhattan and moving to my sister’s house in Larchmont, I took an early morning flight from Westchester Airport to Dallas to meet with Charlie and the gang.

When I walked in the door of the Southwest Texas Capital’s offices in Plano, I was in for a real treat.

Charlie quickly offered me a can of Loco Tonic, an energy drink he had invented and was promoting for the Latino market—and things took off from there.

One by one, I met with Charlie and his entrepreneurial partners. As awkward as I felt being in an environment very different from what I was used to in corporate New York, Charlie and his gang made me feel right at home. Their charm and charisma were enticing—or was it the Loco Tonic?

Besides Loco Tonic, the firm had several other interesting projects in the works, including a startup called RX HBO which sold hyperbaric chambers for chronic wound care and a municipal bond hedge fund.

At the end of a long and interesting day, Charlie astounded me when after flying me in for an interview, he told me he would love to hire me but did not have any money to pay me.

“Would you consider working for commissions?” he asked.

I was already in touch with several boutique investment banks in New York City who were considering giving me a platform from which to work but no base salary. It was called eat what you kill.

It was typical in some industries for sales-people to live off commissions—but was this the new paradigm for financial services?

No one, it seemed at the time, wanted to increase their overhead with the economy looking so bleak.

I had not given it serious consideration at the beginning of the summer, but with half a dozen of my potential employers talking about revenue sharing with no base—and nothing else working out—I started giving such arrangements serious thought. Nevertheless, it did not seem practical to move from New York to Plano for such an arrangement.

From Dallas, I flew to Omaha to spend a few days with my family.

While in Omaha, I had hoped to meet with the CEO of Mutual of Omaha Bank, a new division of the well-known Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, but unfortunately the CEO had to leave town on urgent business. He was buying a distressed bank in Arizona.

I returned to New York having had a great trip to Plano and Omaha, but I still did not have a job.

NYSE Publicity

Strangely, as my job leads fizzled out one after another and in stark contrast to my financial situation which kept getting worse over the course of my unemployment, my publicity kept growing [and continues until this very day, Voices of the Decade, Ten defining events for New York City by the people who were there, New York Post, December 27, 2009]. Apparently, my image and story had struck a deep chord in the personal and social psyche. In fact, my publicity seemed to grow in perfect inverse proportion to the deepening global economic crisis.

As the Face of the American Economy and a Sign of the Times, I became the go-to guy for depressing economic news. Every time higher-than-expected unemployment numbers came out, I received at least one or two calls from journalists asking me to repeat the details of my sandwich board story and share my insights on the economy.

And every time a television, newspaper or Internet story came out displaying my sandwich board picture with my contact information in plain view, my cell phone would ring for hours, and I would receive dozens of emails from across the nation and around the world.

On August 22, a crew of journalists from Japan’s NTV chauffeured me from my Upper East Side sublet to Wall Street for an interview in the heart of capitalism.

We strolled around the financial district and settled on the steps of the old Federal Hall National Memorial, by the prominent bronze statue of George Washington.

I sat facing the New York Sock Exchange whose pillars were covered by a giant American flag and spoke about the presidential candidates, their economic policies and the upcoming elections.

I explained that initially I had been leaning toward Senator McCain because I thought we needed to maintain a clear strategy against terrorism and a strong force in the Middle East—and I was for lower taxes and less government.

However, I also admitted that Senator Obama’s charisma was pulling me in, and I was starting to believe he could help change the world’s perception of the USA for the better—which might be more powerful than the sword. Furthermore, I was for universal health care and aggressive development of alternative energy technologies.

Playing the diplomat, I said I was still on the fence and expected to learn more about the candidates’ policies and visions during the upcoming national conventions.

Crowds of tourists passed by, glancing at me as if I were a celebrity—and a street preacher who seemed to have been in the same spot since George Washington’s time barked for all to repent.

When the interview was over, I strolled around Wall Street recalling my first job after graduating MIT—when I worked on the floor of the American Stock Exchange as an Assistant Options Specialist.

I recalled the excitement on the floor, the rows of computer screens displaying stock quotations, the yelling and shoving as floor brokers and traders positioned themselves and elbowed their way through the crowds.

On the floor of the stock exchange, I had felt as though I were in the heart of capitalism, the center of the free market.

After an intense day on the floor, I would often go across the street for a beer at a bar on a high floor in the World Trade Centers. I would look out over the city and feel as though I were on top of the world.

I remembered the awe I had felt when my brother had first guided me around his place of employment, the Salomon Brothers trading floor near Battery Park. I recalled visiting with my mother in her office when she had worked at AIG on Maiden Lane. I recalled my father telling me that his first office, after graduating from Harvard Law School, had been on Lower Broadway.

My family and I were so connected to the financial district, I almost felt as if I were home—or more relevant to my situation, I had the heart-warming sensation of being employed again.

High Frequency Trading

One of the most exciting calls I got during the summer was from a businessman in Los Angeles who had come cross my story in the New York Times. He claimed he was one of the founders of Qualcomm and had several businesses in which I might fit. I Googled him and learned that he was worth about $900 million dollars.

Cindy and I started to get excited. It was unbelievable. The publicity was working. We anticipated I would soon have a great job. Our white knight had arrived. Suddenly, the possibilities seemed endless. Knowing what I knew about him, I was more open to change and opportunity than ever before.

It took a few weeks to set up a meeting with my contact’s colleagues in New York—but then I spent a week with a high frequency trading start-up and learned a bit about the competitive and secretive world of high frequency "black box" stock trading. I also helped the CEO with his business plan and advised him regarding strategic business decisions.

The group I met with had invested millions of dollars and two years developing their micro-second trading platform. They had made many mistakes with their infrastructure and business strategy and were convinced they were on the verge of making it big—or they would go bankrupt within a few months.
It was an intriguing opportunity.

Although I very much wanted it to work out, I could not come to a mutually beneficial agreement with the CEO and we decided to part ways.

As a gesture of good will, he paid me for my time and efforts as a consultant—but the fact that the opportunity did not work was one of several huge disappointments I experienced during my long and frustrating job search.

To make matters worse, my white knight did not follow through with any other opportunities or contacts—and our communication fizzled out.

Sometimes you can be open to change, but change is not open to you.

Multi-Level Marketing

It was fascinating for me to experience the calls one gets when one is famous and unemployed.

As a result of my contact information going public, I received dozens of offers to help me start my own business. In fact, some of the most persistent callers and emailers to me were people involved with internet-based multi-level marketing schemes—and I spoke at length with many of them.

They would first tell me how they liked my courage, spunk and creativity—and then they would hit me with their pitch. “Look at our web site.” “Come to our next meeting.” “Think about it—it will change your life.”

They seemed sincere and had interesting stories of their own, but my skepticism and the many warnings I found in articles on the Internet prevented me from taking the plunge.

Most of the multi-level marketing schemes involved selling products online while also recruiting other people to sell the same products. I would earn money from what I sold but also earn a share of what the people I recruited sold.

The entrepreneurs who started these companies and people who got in early—and people who really did have the marketing and sales skills, patience and persistence to grow a solid network—probably did very well, but most people who got involved with these schemes were just wasting their time, effort and money.

Some of the multi-level marketing networks were free to join or had very low fees, so there was not much to lose and plenty of potential commissions to be made. However, some of them charged hundreds of dollars for new members—and I read several articles stating that most new members do not generate enough income to cover their initial costs and investment.

Multiple streams of income and residual income for life and beyond sounded more than great, so I tried thinking of my own multi-level marketing scheme with a decent product and a way to get started.

Boutique IB

Another call I received immediately after my publicity was from an attorney at a prestigious boutique investment bank. He told me he had read my story in the newspaper, empathized with my situation—he had been there before—and would help me out.

A week later I had an encouraging interview with the COO of the boutique investment bank. I was so excited and the COO seemed impressed with my experience. The firm was growing, he said, and he would see if he could fit me in. The only hitch was that there was no clear job opening or job description—and as a next step, he wanted me to meet with the firm’s two managing partners.

For weeks, we tried to arrange the meeting, but it was summer and the managing partners were both traveling for business and then on vacation.

Week after week, I checked in with the COO to see if we could schedule a meeting, but I soon stopped getting responses to my emails and calls. I didn’t want to be a nudge, but I also did not want to let a great opportunity slip by.

What was going on?

Finally, toward the end of August, almost two months after my initial and promising interview, I received an email from the COO:

Hi Josh,
I apologize for being unresponsive in this process.  Given the uncertain state of the markets, we have actually begun to trim staffing and hunker down for what may be a bumpy ride. I’m sorry to report that there are currently no opportunities at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________.  I will keep your resume on file and will contact you when we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Regards,

I was so disappointed, especially after being invited for a second meeting, waiting nearly two months—and then having the company’s situation change before the meeting could take place. How frustrating!

Yet, I knew not to take it personally. At least the excitement of the potential position had helped keep up my spirits during my frustrating search.

Lychee Wine

One of the first interesting offers I received after my publicity went viral was to sell lychee wine imported from China. Unfortunately, there was no salary involved and the company had little infrastructure.

My potential employer Vince LoDato had a wine cellar in upstate New York and partnered with a warehouse in New Jersey but had no facilities in New York City. I would have to carry samples of lychee wine door-to-door, create a buzz and sell sell sell in order to earn commissions. If I could stand out on Park Avenue with a sign board, I could surely sell lychee wine store-to-store.

I met with Vince in Rhinebeck, New York, at my father’s house, tasted the delicious lychee wine made from Chinese lychee nuts and thought how fun and wonderful it would be to succeed in the liquor business.

Vince and I sat on the porch for an hour, sipping the sweet dessert wine and discussing the opportunity—and life.

However, when I sobered up and asked around a bit, I learn it would be a very tough sell. Apparently, local American lychee wine producers had already produced a respectable-tasting lychee wine, exerted their marketing power and cornered the market. Perhaps, if I had not had a family to support, I would have taken up the challenge and gone for it. It would have been a great adventure, and I might have struck it rich—but being practical, I had to focus on finding a salaried position or starting my own business.

Transitioning

After my wife and children had left to the airport, moments before I lugged my own suitcases and boxes to a small summer sub-let across the street, I sat in my near-empty apartment trying to catch my breath. I wanted to comprehend the changes going on in my life—losing my job, being unemployed for six months, wearing a sign board on Park Avenue, saying good bye to my wife and children, leaving the apartment where I had lived for the past five years—and the publicity!

A week before, I thought I had been ready for anything. I had gone out to Park Avenue wearing a sign board to hand out resumes. At least I had been willing to experiment and try something different. Yet, I was still hoping to find a job in New York City—or Omaha.

With all the publicity, my network had been extended nationally—even internationally—and I suddenly found myself in touch with people from all over the country and all around the world involved in various fields of work. I knew I would have to consider each and every opportunity, no matter where or what it was.

As I glanced out over the East River from my apartment for the very last time, there was only one thing I knew for sure—even if I had been open to change before, I would have to be even more so going forward. 

Indeed, I had transitioned several times during my professional life. I had worked as an options specialist on the floor of the American Stock Exchange, in marketing and business development for an international satellite communications company, as a commercial banker for a large European bank and as an investment banker on Park Avenue—and it looked as though it was time to transition again. I knew I would have to consider employment in other fields of work and other locations other than New York City and Omaha. In my situation, I could not afford too be too fussy.

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Lesson Learned—Be Creative!

• When searching for a job, get inspired and be creative! You want to stand out from the competition and get noticed. If your approach is the same as everyone else’s, how are you going to find a job? There are a lot of fellow job hunters out there. You are looking for the job—it’s not necessarily looking for you.
  
  
• It doesn’t take much. You don’t have to be as creative as Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Edison. A little ingenuity can go a long way. All I did was put on a $2 sign board and go out to Park Avenue to hand out some resumes, and my life was never the same.
  
  
• When doing the same old thing does not work, don’t give up, but also don’t keep doing the same old thing. Get inspired and do something innovative. Think out-of-the-box, and take a little risk. (One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.) You might have to overcome your fears and inhibitions, but it may well be worth the effort.
  
  
• Don’t be afraid of embarrassment. When I donned a sign board on the corner of 50th Street and Park Avenue, I felt as awkward and embarrassed as could be, but I went through with it. I do not strive to do one thing that scares me every day, as some people do, but sometimes I consciously go out of my comfort zone. Wearing a sign board on Park Avenue was certainly one of those times.
  
  
• Let your creativity flow. Since my own creative and inspirational act, I have become aware of many other resourceful, inspirational and out of the box approaches to finding a job. One person in California had their resume printed on a t-shirt. Another person in Texas advertised their job search on a billboard. A woman in San Francisco set up a web site to help publicize her husband’s job search. A “copycat” sign board guy even hit the streets of New York City and garnered much publicity.
  
  
• Look to history for inspiration. I did not invent the sign board approach. After my publicity, I was contacted by a several people who had advertised their job search using a sign board months or even years before, and they told me they had eventually been quite successful. In the Great Depression, unemployed people wearing sign boards were a common sight.
  
  
• The main thing is to do something. Preferably it’s something innovative and constructive—and also something that suits your personality and that you can live with. If you want to find a job, you have to get noticed. It does not take much, but you have to show initiative. Add a little color to your approach and resume!
  
  
• If you want to find a job, you have got to reach deep inside yourself and bring out your true colors. You’ve got to do something different to attract the attention that will put you ahead of the competition.

Reality TV

As a result of my intense publicity, I was contacted by even more people from the media who wanted to know my story. One of the calls I received was from Megan Alexander, a producer at Inside Edition. She wanted to know if she could film me and my family packing up and leaving New York City. I told her I would be happy to oblige, as long as it could help me find a job. At the time, much to my wife’s bewilderment, I was not familiar with this popular television program.

Cindy was beside herself. She knew the popular celebrity news program well and had mixed feelings about being filmed. She was a very private person and did not want us to be exploited, misrepresented or turned into a sob story. She was going through one of the worst crises in her life, but to the outside world, she wanted to keep her chin up. She loved her life in Manhattan and did not know if or when she would ever be able to return. Still, for anyone beside our immediate family and best friends, she was just taking the kids to Omaha for the summer.

Somehow, I convinced her that all the publicity was good and might help me find a job, so she reluctantly agreed to let Inside Edition film us leaving our apartment. It turned out to be quite a surreal endeavor. As we were going through a very real and personal family crisis, we were being filmed for national television, and the camera crew kept asking us to repeat scenes in which we were packing boxes with our personal belongings and carrying them out the door.

Megan and her crew were as empathetic as could be and apologized with each request for another take. They advised us to carry empty boxes out the door, so we would not have much extra work—but under the circumstances, even the empty boxes felt as heavy as our hearts.

Our little children hid behind the camera man watching and wondering what was going on.

When the program was aired and my contact information was exposed to viewers across the country, my cell phone rang non-stop for hours, and flurries of calls and emails kept arriving for days.

On Sunday, June 30th, Cindy kissed me goodbye and left to the airport with our two darling children and tears in her eyes. However, with all the sudden publicity, I was certain that things were going to work out for the best. It took a lot longer than I had hoped, but after an inspirational Wizard of Oz-like journey, I would eventually find the job of my dreams.

The Face of the American Economy

On June 21, 2008, I was having dinner with my wife Cindy on one of our regular Saturday night outings, perhaps our last Saturday night outing in Manhattan. I had been unemployed for nearly six months, and we had already made some very tough decisions. We were going to leave our apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in a week and a half. Cindy and the children were going to move in with her parents in Omaha, Nebraska, over thirteen hundred miles away. We were going to sell most of our furniture and put the rest of our belongings in storage. I was going to sublet a small apartment in the city for July and August in order to continue searching for a job and to host my children from my previous marriages who spent every summer with me.

The flash of inspiration arrived as we shared a main course and asked ourselves over and over, “What are we going to do? How are we going to get through this? How are we going to survive as a family?”

The idea had entered my mind before, but I had not verbalized it and it had gone into hibernation. Suddenly, it came to my mind again but this time, I described it to Cindy. I suggested I go out to Park Avenue during lunch time to hand out some resumes. A lot of investment bankers, private equity and hedge fund managers go out for lunch meetings or to take a mid-day break. Since I was not an overly aggressive salesman, I would put on a sign board, so that people could see what I was doing. It would say, “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire,” the subject line in most of the emails I sent out to potential employers. The sign board would include my contact information and I would go out every day during lunchtime for a week.

Cindy was immediately enthralled. “That’s a great idea. You’ve got to do it!” She immediately called a couple of friends and they also thought it was a great idea.

That Sunday morning, Cindy purchased a couple a sheets of poster board for two dollars and composed the twin signs. I punched holes in the poster boards and tied the two sheets together with a pair of old shoe-laces.

On Monday morning, I tried to back out of my plan because of embarrassment and rain, but Cindy insisted I follow through. “You have a family to support. You have to find a job!”

Late in the morning, I went out to 50th St. and Park Avenue and donned my sign board. My only goal was to generate a few new leads and find a job. The sky was overcast, but the drizzle had stopped. I was embarrassed but tried to take it all in stride. I am generally good humored and optimistic, but I was concerned how the passers-by might react. Amazingly, the first few people who walked by seemed to smile. I held a stack of resumes in my hand, smiled back and held out a copy of my resume for those who might be interested.

Taking the advice of her friend Matt Hagan who ran a small public relations firm in Washington DC, Bulldog Public Relations, Cindy sent out a press release to the local papers explaining what I was doing. Then, on her own initiative as a photojournalist, she came down to take a photograph of me in my full sign-board glory. She had the children with her, so she worked fast, taking a few candid shots and I didn’t think much of it. As soon as she arrived home, she resent the press release along with one of her photographs.

Cindy and I had no idea how far my little flash of inspiration and her simple publicity efforts would take us and that by the end of the week, my picture and story would be circulating the globe. The New York Sun and New York Post first pick up the story on Monday. On Tuesday, local TV and radio stations such as ABC, NBC and CBS aired my picture and story. On Wednesday, the national networks such as Fox, CNN and CNBC interviewed me, and subsequently my picture and story were launched around the world by the BBC, AP and Reuters. The BBC called me, “The Face of the American Economy,” while the AP called my story, “Sign of the Times.”

By the third day that I was wearing my sign board on Park Avenue, people walking by were telling me they had seen me on television or read about me in the newspaper. The passers-by were all encouraging (okay, almost all) and I handed out a stack of resumes.

In fact, after the first hour I was out with my sign board, there were only a few minutes during the entire rest of the week during which I was not in front of a camera and microphone or speaking with an inquisitive journalist who was taking notes.

As my publicity went viral, emails and phone calls started pouring in from around the world. It took me hours to go through my cell phone messages and sort through the emails. I tried to respond to everyone who reached out to me and followed up with every possible lead.

By Friday, June 27th, the last day I wore the sign board, I had received encouraging emails from then-strangers around the world. It’s amazing how simple gestures of friendliness and support can lift one’s spirit. Still stunned by the completely unexpected turn of events, I opened my inbox to:

YOU'RE VERY FAMOUS IN KOREA.
Dear Jusua Persky.
I'm TaeHun KIM, a Korean and lives in Seoul. I saw you at one of Korean news paper with picture….If you want to join business in Korea. Please contact to me. I've nice skill of general manager even Law of Korea. thank you for read this mail. Good luck and God bless you for the long time.
Best regards.
TaeHun Kim.
 
Josh you are famous now!! Do you have any idea how many websites and news sites you have been on?
 
Hello Joshua. One of my colleagues at 280 Park forwarded your resume to me. Please let me know a good time for us to talk. Thanks so much.
Best regards,
 
Dear Joshua,
This is Anicca Chao writing from beijing,china .I saw your picture on TODAY'S beijing news( a daily newspaper in beijing ) in which you wearing a poster with Experienced MIT GRAD FOR HIRE on it .and i can see clearly your email address. the title of this report is " Losing job wide is hitting US" and the article appraised you that you way of hunting for ajob is quite unique .
your photo also impressive me and my collegue .well ,wish everything goes well with you and good luck in finding a good job.
 Best wishes .
Anicca
 
Hi, I saw you on the newspaper, never loose ur hope man, i hope u can find a job soon.
From Istanbul with love.
Murat
 
Hola Joshua
Es muy difícil estar en la banqueta buscando empleo, lo se y esa es la razon por la que escribo, deseearte la mejor de las suertes y encuentre un puesto de buen nivel. No desesperes, no pierdas la fe y te aseguro que estaras bien pronto.
Francisco Cervantes
desde Monterrey, México‏
 
Hi Joshua,
My Name is Fred Ng, I am in Hong Kong now.
I saw your self promoting method is quite interesting. I guess you have a strong desire to change your life….This may be your life changing moment.
Yours,
Fred Ng
 
hi dear i am tusher from bangladesh . seeing you in the newspaper i feel very pain for you as you lost your job . dont be upset. you are a experienced person so i hope you will get better job very soon. good luck & good bye.
 
Hello,
I saw your story on AOL....I just wanted to let you know that I hope you have a GREAT job before the day's end! Thumbs up on the effort!!!! Don't give up!
God Bless You and yours!!!! 

As a result of my creative act and attention from the media, I went from feeling as though I were at the edge of a cliff to feeling optimistic. I was suddenly receiving so much sympathy from around the world, good will and prayers for success, something positive had to come of it. I was contacted by many people who said they had business opportunities and good leads for me. Yet, would I actually get an interview or even a job offer as a result of someone reading my story or viewing my picture in a newspaper, on TV or via the Internet?

Heartland Bound

One evening, in late May, Cindy approached me and said, “I’m taking the kids to Omaha for the summer. We’ll put our stuff in storage. You’ll stay here to find a job. Hopefully, you’ll get something by the end of the summer, and we’ll come back. If not, you’ll join us in Omaha.”

It was painful to contemplate, but it sounded like a plan. Cindy usually took the children to Omaha for a few weeks during the summer in any case. This time it would just be for longer. I expected that by the end of the summer, I would have a job, and they would return to New York to pick up where we had left off.

Subsequently, I sent out a frenzy of emails, applying to dozens of jobs a day, but the inevitable apocalypse relentlessly approached. Was this really happening? How had I so completely let down my family? What could I do that I have not already tried? What else could I do?

My flash of inspiration was no where near as momentous as Newton’s, when he observed an apple falling from a tree and deduced the Law of Gravity, but it in a similar way, a creative idea popped into my mind and changed the course of my life.

Plan B Boogie

The first significant lead I had was with Pluris Valuation Advisors. I had met with Espen Roback, President of Pluris, a year earlier, and we had much to talk about. I called him, and he agreed to meet for breakfast at Balthazar’s, a trendy SoHo restaurant, where we discussed our experiences and outlooks concerning the valuations business.

A few days later, Espen suggested I visit his office to meet his colleagues.

I knew I had to develop as many leads as I could, so I did not sit back and wait to see what happened with Pluris. I had learned my lesson with Duff & Phelps.

Expanding my search to other types of positions, I reached out to the father of one of my daughter’s classmates. He had a senior business development position with Hewlett Packard and regularly commuted over 3,000 miles to the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

I met with him several times at school-related events, and he was very friendly and encouraging. He said he would speak with his colleagues and try to fit me in—and then he put me in touch with one of his colleagues in Palo Alto.

After a long and intensive telephone interview with his Palo Alto-based colleague, I had doubts about how the conversation had gone, but my contact later told me he had gotten positive feedback and we could move forward. He only needed to get budget approval for a new full-time employee—and I was in!

Another good lead that manifested itself at that time was via my wife’s cousin whose apartment I was using as an office. David Goldman helped me set up an interview at the hedge fund where he worked, one of the world’s largest and most successful, Fortress Investment Group.

In the middle of April, I had a round of interviews with an asset management and in-house valuations group at Fortress, and although my chemistry with the colleagues I met was not perfect, the meetings went well enough—and I assumed David’s pull would enable me to get my foot in the door.

Another great lead came through a friend of my wife’s family in Omaha. I was put in touch with a recruiter who worked closely with D.E. Shaw, another of the world’s largest and most successful hedge funds. The recruiter was excited by my resume, especially my MIT education and investment banking experience. She thought she would at least be able to get me an interview.

Unfortunately, although they each in turn seemed close to happening, none of these great leads worked out. As the weeks passed, initial interviews, follow-up meetings and all decisions were pushed off indefinitely. After all my efforts and great expectations, I could not seem to get a firm answer Yes or No from anyone. Sometimes, I could not even get a reply.

One contact had to wait for a budget review, while another had to go on an urgent business trip, while the others had to talk to their colleagues when they returned from vacation before they could get back to me. It was all taking too long.

What was I going to do? What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I find a job?

Cindy and I knew our time was running out fast. If I did not find a job by the end of June, we would not be able to renew the lease on our apartment. We not only had to start thinking about Plan B, we had to start preparing for it.

Where were going to live? How were we going to survive?

We did not have any practical solutions. We spoke about moving out of Manhattan and finding an inexpensive place to live, but I still needed to find a job. Otherwise, we were going to need some serious help.

Bitten By the Bear

In the middle of March, the bomb hit which jolted me from any complacency, shook my confidence and changed the rules of engagement. Bear Stearns collapsed, and I started to realize that things were different this time. When I should have been re-entering the job market, the job market was collapsing around me.

Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the country, had over 15,000 employees around the world, and until the beginning of its travails in late 2007 had never reported a quarterly loss in its financial statements in its entire eighty-five year history.

Suddenly, I was watching news clips of formeremployees walking out with boxes of belongings. They were in shock. Dedicated professionals who had worked at Bear Stearns all their lives, scholars who had earned MBAs at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton and the University of Chicago, streetwise entrepreneurs who had risen from the hardworking immigrant populations of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, motivated and high energy buccaneers from all over the country and all around the world who had come to the Big Apple to find their fortune, executive assistants, receptionists and maintenance workers who had worked at Bear Stearns for years were all suddenly kicked out of their workspaces, offices and cubicles.

I had been familiar with Bear Stearns since I was a kid and had worked across the street for the past two years. I had even interviewed at Bear Stearns a few years earlier, in the very same Mortgage and Asset Backed Securities group which helped bring the company down. I had contacts at Bear Stearns and had been trying to get my foot in the door for years. With a bang and a shudder, the door was slammed shut on everyone who worked at Bear Stearns and everyone who had ever dreamed of working there.

With that monumental event, suddenly there were thousands of highly-qualified bankers looking for jobs. The thought of such intense competition was like cold water on my face, waking me from a slumber. I started wondering how long it would take to find a job. Two and a half months had passed since I had left Houlihan Lokey. A month and a half had passed since I had interviewed at Duff & Phelps. Ironically, they had called me every few months while I had worked at Houlihan Lokey, and now that I needed a job, they no longer seemed interested.

With the collapse of Bear Sterns, my already-scratched-rose-colored glasses snapped in half. I was concerned. I had been counting on Duff & Phelps and had generated few other leads and even fewer interviews. Suddenly, I had to compete with thousands of the best and the brightest, with people who were not only street-smart but also Wall Street-smart.

Cindy was also beginning to panic. “If you don’t find a job in the next few months, what are we going to do? Our lease is up at the end of June. If you don’t have a something by then, we won’t be able to renew our lease. You spend too much time in front of the computer. You’ve got to make more phone calls and get out there and meet people. You’ve got to find a job!”

With the collapse of Bear Stearns, I realized my chances of finding a financial services job in the city were quite slim and my job search was too narrowly focused. I did not give up on finding a Wall Street job, but I broadened my perspective and started considering positions in fields other than those relating to my most recent experience. For instance, I started pursuing opportunities in business development and corporate finance.

I also started doubling the amount of resumes I sent out. If I was going to find a job, I knew I had to work hard—and my efforts soon paid off with a string of enticing leads.

Same Old New

On the job front, my hottest lead at the time was for Duff & Phelps, possibly the firm with the largest business and investment valuations practice in the world. I had met with the Managing Director of the Valuations division, Warren Hirschhorn, a year earlier, and I had enjoyed learning about his approach to valuations.

Once I had informed the Duff & Phelps Human Resources Department that I had officially left Houlihan Lokey at the end of December, they set up a round of interviews for late January. I met with Warren and two of his Directors and spoke with a third Director over the telephone.

When I left Duff & Phelps, I sensed that two of my meetings had gone well. But, as luck would have it, the third seemed to flop with a simple case of imperfect chemistry. Still, I was fairly confident Duff & Phelps would offer me a job. After all, I had met Warren before and Human Resources had been calling me every few months for the past year.

But a few days turned into a few weeks—and still no update.  Despite my cajoling, my contact at Duff & Phelps would not let me know my status. I was left hanging. I began to think that even a quick “No,” would be less nerve-wracking than hearing nothing.

In the meantime, I kept busy by watching the stock market, day-trading and sending out resumes. I used online job sites, such as the MIT Sloan Alumni Job Board, CareerBuilder.com, Glocap Search, JobsintheMoney.com, nytimes.com, Monster.com, and others.

Furthermore, I was in telephone and email contact with dozens of recruiters, most of whom specialize in financial positions and some of whom sent out encouraging job alerts and newsletters with new job listings, such as Brokerage Consultants and Dynamics Associates. I was also a regular visitor on LinkedIn.

To round off my job-hunting efforts, I went to networking events sponsored by the MIT Sloan Alumni Club of New York, International Association of Financial Engineers (IAEF) and Professional Risk Manager's International Association (PRMIA). I also continued to network aggressively via friends and family as that is how I had found several jobs in the past.

In any case, I was confident that Duff & Phelps would give me an offer, and I was looking forward to getting a real job with health care, a savings plan and all the other benefits. I had enjoyed a hefty paycheck as a consultant at Houlihan Lokey, but I did not enjoy the insecurity of not knowing day-to-day when my contract would end, and it was disappointing not to have benefits. Worst of all, I was treated like an outsider, while all I ever wanted was to be part of the gang. I wanted to feel as though I belonged in the company where I worked and where I spent most of my days and some of my nights.

After a month a half had passed since my meetings at Duff & Phelps, when I still could not get a reply from Human Resources or Warren Hirschhorn, I started having severe doubts about things working out. Not always, but often when you don’t get a timely reply, it simply means “No.” Some employers just like to let things fizzle out. It’s easier than saying, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

I was disappointed but not yet overly concerned. Something would work out soon, I surmised, whether it was a job or one of my entrepreneurial endeavors.

Day Trading

The day after New Year’s Day, I walked from my apartment to my new “office” on the Upper West Side. My wife’s cousin David Goldman let me use his apartment as a base of operations to make calls, send emails, look for a job and watch the market while he was at work. I would get a lot more done in a quiet apartment than if I stayed at home with my wife and two small children. It would also help me maintain my work discipline and a daily routine.

I generally wandered across Central Park going to and returning home from my new office even in the freezing cold. Walking across the park took only a few more minutes than taking the cross-town bus: my break through the North Meadow, along the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and under the Gothic Bridge always provided the perfect, peaceful distraction from a stressful day. 

As I started searching for a job, I focused on finding a similar position to my most recent experience, as that is typically the path of least resistance and what most people do. Besides, although I had not been satisfied with the environment at Houlihan Lokey, I had liked the work very much, calculating the fair market value of businesses and investments.

However, being unemployed also gave me a chance to see if I could fulfill a long-term desire to make money for myself instead of for others. After working for other people in companies large and small for most of my life, I wanted to see if I could run my own business. For many years, I had wanted to try my hand at day-trading, while I was also convinced I had what it took to start a hedge fund and manage others people’s money.

While sending out resumes, making phone calls, networking and going on interviews, I had an opportunity to try both. I opened a day-trading account and also convince a wealthy friend to allow me to manage some money his brokerage account.

I had no upside or downside in my friend’s account and was only allowed to by Blue Chip stocks or similar and sell call options against the stocks in the portfolio. My friendly investor accepted all the risks and took all the rewards for my handling of his portfolio in order to provide me with a track record—proof of concept—for my chosen strategy.

Although I was determined to succeed, day-trading turned out to be quite a costly learning experience. The market started tanking and I was not comfortable selling short. I tried various strategies and made numerous mistakes. In the end, I lost money.

At first, I bought straddles, hoping to make money when a stock such as Apple moved up or down more than a few dollars in a single day. Then I tried making money on earnings announcements. I also tried scalping—timing the small waves that most stocks go through at least several times every day.

It all seemed so simple and easy at first, but identifying the right stocks to trade turned out to be trickier than I had thought. When I watched the market to learn and practice without actually trading, I made great picks. If only I had been trading, I convinced myself, I would have made hundreds or thousands of dollars. However, when I actually bought a stock, it almost inevitably went the wrong way and I lost more than I could afford.

On the other hand, my little hedge fund performed almost perfectly, generating an average return of one and a half percent per month for three months. I was a hedge-fund wannabe—on my way to starting a hedge fund.

The covered-call strategy I used was nothing new and was much less work-intensive and less stressful than day-trading. It was also a more prudent and disciplined strategy—and it worked.

The overall portfolio had its ups and downs, but by selling options against the stocks in the portfolio month after month, I more than made up for the fluctuations. After all, I was selling time and volatility. How could I lose?

After three months, I had made my investor a good sum of money, and I had produced for myself a successful three month track record.

Although I would have liked to continue managing my investor’s funds, I was getting very skeptical about the health of the stock market, and my investor was becoming outright nervous. The market frightened us. He wanted to quit while we were ahead, and my gut instinct told me not to argue with him. We had accomplished our mission and agreed to end the experiment.

In retrospect, it was a great decision. I would have gone on to lose a significant amount of money. I might not have lost as much as a passive sit and hold strategy, but it’s hard to imagine that I could have made money with my strategy as the market began to decline sharply, bringing down the best of the best along with the rest.

Also, as a result of pulling out while we were ahead, my investor and I remained good friends, and he will not let me touch the bill when we meet for lunch.

With a brief but successful track record, I reached out to several acquaintances and firms that seeded nascent hedge fund managers, but no one seemed to be interested in my approach. It is difficult enough to raise money for a hedge fund when the market is strong and almost impossible when the market is weak.

At least I tried to be independent and work at something about which I felt passionate. Unfortunately, I was not successful at day-trading and the time was not right for starting a hedge fund.

Lame Duck Investment Banker

During my last six week at Houlihan Lokey, in addition to finishing the projects on my desk and handing off my responsibilities to the two Senior Vice Presidents with whom I worked, I updated my resume and registered on several Internet job boards.

I dug out my lists of investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms and valuation firms, many of which I had spoken with the year before, the first time I had been fired. I made numerous phone calls and forwarded my resume to dozens of contacts. I knew it would not be an easy process but at least I already had a few good leads, including interest from the largest valuation firm, Duff & Phelps. A member of the Duff & Phelps Human Resource department had called me every few months during the course of the year to ask if I was interested in working there. I had always answered in the affirmative, but they had never followed up by calling me in for a meeting.

I also had contacts at some of the top bulge bracket investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. I had reached out to them before, and there was no reason not to reach out again, especially since I now had two years experience producing valuations at Houlihan Lokey. I had never intended to be a consultant. It was time to find a real job, a full-time job with benefits, health insurance and bonus potential.

Since I did not have much pressure at work and had permission to look for a job, I also started researching stock trading strategies and watching the market as closely as I could. I had done some investing over the years, making money most of the time and breaking even at others, so I got prepared to be a more active stock trader.

The Internet-based technology available to people who wanted to trade stocks from home on a daily basis, day-traders, had been well-developed over the years and was quite remarkable. With real-time signals about what was going on in the markets and with individual stocks, day-trading looked easy. Every day, as I watched the market, I convinced myself that I would have made thousands of dollars if only I had been day-trading. I grew certain I could make a living in the stock market.

Another possibility I envisioned for myself was staring a hedge fund and managing other peoples’ money. Over the years, I had become enamored by one specific strategy which I some day hoped to implement on a grand scale. I had read several academic papers demonstrating that the buy-write or covered-call strategy was one of the most prudent and lucrative investment strategies—and it made perfect sense to me. I could buy stocks and sell options against them.

I could help people protect their stock investments from the downside and grow their portfolio to the upside by doing what a hedge fund was supposed to do—hedge.

If done correctly—with discipline, a little trading strategy and a portfolio of the most successful long-term performing stocks—it was no more than selling time and volatility. In the long run, I would reap the benefits of growth and the dividends paid by some of the biggest and best companies in the world. Perhaps I could raise enough funds to start my own hedge fund.

Cindy thought I should do it all: look for a job, start day-trading and try to raise money for a hedge fund.

“You don’t know what will work out,” she said.

However, what she really wanted me to do was to start my own business valuations firm. “You don’t get rich working for other people,” she admonished me. “You get rich by starting your own business and being successful. At least then, no one can fire you.”

Her father had worked hard for most of his life to build up an institutional pharmacy business and had sold it off, allowing him to retire early.

Her brother was building his own health care company and was on the verge of great success.

My father had established several law firms and had been a Partner most of his life. He had also opened an innovative color photography art gallery, Images, a Gallery of Contemporary Photographic Art, the first of its kind in New York City and had founded a small publishing house, Consultant Press.

My older brother, after years of working for others, including Citigroup and Solomon Brothers, had founded a hedge fund in Los Angeles and was doing quite well.

Since graduating MIT, I had always thought I would be an entrepreneur. During the high-tech boom of the 1990’s, I had tried to raise money for a startup and had come close to succeeding, but I had not been able to raise that first round of financing. I had returned to the job market to spend my time working for companies large and small but always for someone else as a salary man. Maybe it was finally my turn to strike out on my own and start a business.

The only problem was money. I didn’t have the time or capital to start a valuations firm in New York City. The overhead was prohibitive, and what if I didn’t win clients quickly enough? I did not have the luxury of spending a year or even a few months on marketing my services. I needed to make as much money as I could as quickly as possible in order to support my family.

Daddy’s Home

When I returned home to our apartment on the Upper East Side, my little children Isabella and Isaac, as they often did unless they were utterly engrossed in an art project, TV program or napping on the couch, ran up to me with smiles, giggles and hugs around my legs. “Daddy’s home!”

As accustomed, they quickly backed off and returned to their activities, giving me a few minutes to change out of my suit and into something more comfortable.

“How was your day?” asked my wife Cindy. She emerged from the kitchen where she was preparing dinner.I sat down on the couch.

“I was fired again.”

“Oh,” sighed Cindy.

“I’m not surprised. We knew this was going to happen. Are you OK?”

She did not seem too upset. “I’m OK. Are you OK?”

I approached and hugged her. “Now you can do your own thing. You’ve always wanted to be a trader. Now’s your chance, or you can start you own valuations firm.”

“They must have sensed how miserable I was.”

“The Managing Director called you into his office?”

“No, the Senior VP from the Washington office.”

“That Managing Director couldn’t even tell you himself? Just like last time. I don’t like the way they treated you.”

“He did exactly what he said he would do. When he hired me, he told me, ‘You’ll pay your dues for a couple of years, and I’ll give you a new career.’ It was good while it lasted.”

“They should have made you the Managing Director. You should have been telling them what to do.”

“I have six weeks. I’ll start looking for a job tomorrow.”

“You’ve been looking for a job for two years.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve sent out a few resumes and made a few calls. It’s not easy. You have to know someone. It’s always the politics. Who will do the work when I’m not there?”

“Don’t worry about them, worry about us. You’ve got to figure out what to do!”

Park Avenue Amble

My walks were often the highlight of my day. If the weather was bad, I ducked into Grand Central Station, meandering through the busy food courts, market stalls and shops.

These walks kept me sane, healthy and in good humor. A midday walk was essential—and on days when I planned to work late, an evening walk was too.

Usually, I strolled on Park Avenue, uplifted by the wealth and pride of the people, buildings and financial institutions that made up the famous strip. Sometimes, I walked east to the United Nations, intrigued by the embassies and the wealth of nations. On occasion, I walked to Park Avenue South to catch the sun which was blocked to the north by the Met Life Building. Other times, I meandered by the New York Public Library to enjoy the open space at Bryant Park.

I hoped I could find another job in the same neighborhood. I loved watching the figure skaters at the Bryant Park during the winter and sitting in the sun for a few minutes during the summer. There was almost always entertainment in the park—music, theater or a fashion show.

I also loved Grand Central Station. There were often interesting cultural exhibitions in Vanderbilt Hall—or a movie being filmed in the Main Concourse. Although I rarely ate in the food court, I enjoyed walking by all the restaurants to relish the amazing variety of food on display.

Having just been fired for the second time, I strolled uptown along Park Avenue. Who would do all my work? Did they consider how much profit I generated? Did they appreciate that my clients repeatedly sent me thank you notes praising my work and attentiveness? Would they ask me to stay again?

I was upset, but I was also somewhat relieved. Indeed, my relationship with Houlihan Lokey had been tenuous from the beginning.

I glanced over at the Charles Schwab office on the corner of 50th and Park. Maybe I’ll start a hedge fund, I thought, or become a professional stock trader. I loved following the market and ever since my first job on the floor of the American Stock Exchange, I had always wanted to work with the market. I had gone off in a different direction, but I could return to it. It would be exciting and best of all, I would be my own boss.

As I arrived at the large Seagram’s Building plaza housing a metallic Calder sculpture on 52nd and Park Avenue, my blood started to boil and my eyes wandered between the sky and the ground. I started circling the plaza.

Should I call my wife? No, not yet, I’ll tell her when I get home. This was no surprise I reminded myself. I had wanted to get out of there. I had been dissatisfied all along. I’ll find something better.

Stay calm, I told myself. Be professional. Keep your cool. It will all work out for the best.

I gave myself time to get upset and then some more time to calm down. I had been let go before, and I had always landed on my feet. It had never been easy, but I had always managed to move forward and find something better. In any case, I had been unhappy at Houlihan Lokey, and now I was free.

As I started heading back to the office, my doubts and insecurities returned with a vengeance. The Indian summer sun had vanished completely behind the Manhattan skyline with perfect and painstaking ease, bringing darkness and a chill to the air. Suddenly disoriented, I realized that I had no idea what the end or beginning of the day meant anymore. I was completely lost. The only thing I knew was that I was that I was going to return home to my wife and children without a job.

What was I going to do? I’d been through this before. Why was everything so difficult? Why were there so many challenges in life?

I returned to the office, hiding my mixture of hurt and relief and worked for a few more hours. The work made me calm. I was good at what I did and proud of my professionalism—but there was certainly no reason to stay late.

I stepped out of Houlihan Lokey’s revolving doors for one of the last times ever and walked right into the global economic nightmare of 2008. I didn’t know that at the time, so after recovering from my initial shock and disappointment, my overwhelming feeling was of relief. Finally, I was free of the politics and pretentiousness, the power-struggles and back-stabbing.

I just hoped Cindy would not be too upset.

Some Thanksgiving!

As isolated and frustrated as I had been at Houlihan Lokey, I was still shocked and felt rejected to be made redundant for the second time. The Managing Director who had hired me had barely spoken with me during the entire two years I had worked for him, and same as the first time I had been let go, he had instructed a subordinate to deliver the bad news.

The first time I had been fired, the Managing Director had told me, “You should start looking for a new job. You can have a few months.” However, it had been a relatively new Senior Vice President in the Hedge Fund Portfolio Valuations group who had called me into her office to negotiate the specific termination date.

I had been devastated. I had learned quickly and worked hard for nine months, but the Analyst with whom I worked closest had been anything but my champion. He would take my perfectly good work, scribble meaningless instructions all over it and complain to the Managing Director. Unfortunately, he happened to be the Managing Director’s favorite Analyst, so there was not much I could do.

A year later, at the time of my second termination, it was a Senior Vice President from the Washington DC office who delivered the bad news. I had been working closely with him and a Senior Vice President from the San Francisco office for several months—since the Senior Vice President who had negotiated my termination date the first time and who had subsequently rehired me, had quit.

The Senior Vice President from the Washington DC office called me into the multi-purpose office he used on his weekly visits to New York City and admitted he did not know the full story but said he had been told by the Managing Director to give me notice. I would have until the end of the year, six weeks. There would be no extensions and no severance. After two years of hard work and no benefits, some Thanksgiving! I stared blankly at him and kept my thoughts to myself.

I went back to my desk and lost myself for a while in my work. I gave the distressing news time to sink in and when I couldn’t sit still anymore, I went out for a stroll.

Twice Fired

The first time I was let go from the prestigious investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, I was given several months warning. I searched aggressively for a new job, reaching out to business valuation firms, investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms, but nothing moved forward. Awkwardly and to my great relief, two weeks before my mid-November termination date, I was politely asked—well, begged—to stay. I politely agreed.

A year later, the second time I was let go from Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, my entire world fell apart. It was a kind of seismic, once in a lifetime crash—the kind that takes more effort than I ever thought possible of family, friends, mentors, journalists and an empathic public to put back together. 

Before I tell you about the job search that ensued, let me explain where I was coming from. Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin was a prominent investment bank, head-quartered in Los Angeles, with an equally large and lucrative office on Park Avenue in the Big Apple. The firm was among the best at what it did: mergers and acquisitions, financial restructuring of distressed companies and financial advisory. The firm was not as well-known outside the industry as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, but it was well-respected by its peers and clients. It was also known to have a hardball attitude.

The Analysts at the firm were treated for several years as initiates in a fraternity, raised until they were chewed up and spit out—or selected to survive. Superiors treated them as servants, abusing their time and efforts.

Associates were considered as members of the firm but were treated only slightly better. Vice Presidents were Officers of the firm and began to earn respect but were still treated as sub-human. Senior Vice Presidents had arrived at a position of reward and responsibility, but the demands could still be overwhelming.

Managing Directors approached divinity. They ruled. Anyone above that was either pleasant because they could afford to be or made themselves unapproachable.

I was a full-time consultant in a newly established Hedge Fund Portfolio Valuations group. I calculated the fair market value of investments, companies, assets, loans and anything our hedge fund clients would pay us to value—so they would have an independent estimation of what their holdings were worth.

I was paid well, more than most, but as a consultant, I received no benefits, no health insurance and no retirement plan. Moreover, I was not in the bonus pool where most of the big money was made.

During the two years I was at Houlihan Lokey, I was not aware of any other full-time consultants in the office. One other consultant arrived for a specific project and left after a few weeks. I was unique and an outcast.

Since I was not an official member of the firm, I was excluded from all internal organizational meetings and from marketing the firm’s services to potential clients. I was treated as a sub-Analyst, the lowest of the low—even though I was twice the age of most of the Analysts and Associates, had an MIT/Sloan School of Management education and had considerable international business experience.

Working in a cubicle, I produced valuations, read finance statements and legal documents, crunched numbers and wrote reports, day after day.

I had been hired as a full-time consultant for a three-to-six month trial period. It had been a tough initiation and a fast learning curve, but I was subsequently bankrolled for two tumultuous yet prosperous years and given the opportunity to develop a new career—and learn a new culture.

While at Houlihan Lokey, I got to experience and closely observe the habits of the Analysts and Associates who surrounded me. Most of the Analysts were in their early twenties—recent college graduates gaining valuable work experience before returning to school for their MBAs. Most of the Associates were in their late twenties or early thirties. They already had MBAs and several years of work experience.

Some of the Analysts and Associates were highly motivated and dedicated workers, while others talked with each other about sports or chatted all day on the telephone with their friends and never seemed to get anything done.

At around seven o’clock every evening, those who remained in the office would order dinner via the Internet. The company paid for dinner for employees who worked long hours.

Soon after ordering their meals, the Analysts and Associates would emerge from their cubicles and start throwing a small football down the isles and over the rows of cubicles. Sometimes, a football would come crashing into my cubicle, and I would pass it back to the gang.

When dinner arrived, most of the Analysts and Associates would stake out empty cubicles and eat together as if they were at a tailgating party, while others—perhaps the ones who were really trying to get some work done—ate alone their desks.

It seemed as though the goal was to stay at work until at least nine o’clock, after which an employee could order a town car at the firm’s expense to take them home. It did not matter whether they lived in the city or one of the outer boroughs or even in New Jersey. If they worked for a certain amount of hours and stayed past a certain time, they could call the car service and the firm would pick up the tab.

Many of the Analysts and Associates made this a nightly habit. It was their culture. It was their bonding. It was their perk for working long hours—or at least putting in the face time. It was free dinner and a ride home. I was not interested in that lifestyle. I preferred to spend my time with my wife and kids.

Experienced MIT Grad For Hire

Just as I was motivated to a start my blog www.oracleofny.com to keep in touch with the hundreds of people from around the world who contacted me by email and telephone with words of encouragement and job leads after my sign board publicity initially went viral, I was motivated to write a book after I eventually landed a job and hundreds more people contacted me proclaiming I was an inspiration and seeking job hunting advice.

During the cold, lonely winter nights and on weekends, while my wife and children were in Omaha, I started writing Experienced MIT Grad For Hire based on my personal experience and career coach Paloma Bowland’s transformational advice.

I want to share my inspirational story and give encouragement to the many people who gave me encouragement when I needed it most — during my long stretch of unemployment. I want to reach out to people all over the world with words of help and hope.

Even a year and a half after my photograph and story first went public, they continue to circulate the globe — and even a year after I started working again, many people ask for the details of my inspirational act, unique job search, what I learned and where it has taken me.

I realized that I enjoy — and am good at — helping others, so I've decided to share the tools I’ve learned over the past year — to inspire people to think and act in new ways to land a job.

Anyone who is looking for a job or who could use a bit of personal inspiration may be interested in my informative tale of creativity, bravery, perseverance and practical job hunting advice.

Don’t give up!

 

Outlook for the Economy

From Chairman Bernanke's speech at the Economic Club of New York:

In addition to constrained bank lending, a second area of great concern is the job market. Since December 2007, the U.S. economy has lost, on net, about 8 million private-sector jobs, and the unemployment rate has risen from less than 5 percent to more than 10 percent. Both the decline in jobs and the increase in the unemployment rate have been more severe than in any other recession since World War II. 

Besides cutting jobs, many employers have reduced hours for the workers they have retained. For example, the number of part-time workers who report that they want a full-time job but cannot find one has more than doubled since the recession began, a much larger increase than in previous deep recessions.

In addition, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers has fallen to 33 hours, the lowest level in the postwar period. These data suggest that the excess supply of labor is even greater than indicated by the unemployment rate alone.

With the job market so weak, businesses have been able to find or retain all the workers they need with minimal wage increases, or even with wage cuts. Indeed, standard measures of wages show significant slowing in wage gains over the past year. Together with the reduction in hours worked, slower wage growth has led to stagnation in labor income. Weak income growth, should it persist, will restrain household spending.

The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly. Declines in payroll employment over the past four months have averaged about 220,000 per month, compared with 560,000 per month over the first half of this year. The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance is well off its high of last spring, but claims still have not fallen to ranges consistent with rising employment.

Although economic pain is widespread across industries and regions, different groups of workers have been affected differently. For example, the unemployment rate for men between the ages of 25 and 54 has risen from less than 4 percent in late 2007 to 10.3 percent in October--nearly double the rise in unemployment among adult women. This discrepancy likely reflects the high concentration of job losses in manufacturing, construction, and financial services, industries in which men make up the majority of workers.

From the perspective of America's economic future, the effect of the recession on young workers is particularly worrisome: The unemployment rate among people between the ages of 16 and 24 has risen to 19 percent--and among African American youths, it is now about 30 percent. When young people are shut out of the job market, they lose valuable opportunities to gain work experience and on-the-job training, potentially reducing their future wages and employment opportunities.

Given this weakness in the labor market, a natural question is whether we might be in for a so-called jobless recovery, in which output is growing but employment fails to increase.

Productivity is defined as output per hour of work. Thus, essentially by definition, a jobless recovery--in which output is growing but hours of work are not--must be a period of productivity growth. In the jobless recoveries that followed the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions, productivity growth was quite strong. It may seem paradoxical that productivity growth--which in the longer term is the most important source of increases in real wages and living standards--can have adverse consequences for employment in the short term. But, when the demand for goods and services is growing slowly, that may be the case.

Valuation Support for Complex Corporate Litigation

My partners for complex corporate litigation support are regularly chosen as experts for litigation matters in the Delaware Court of Chancery and other jurisdictions because of their experience and ingenuity. Their well-supported written reports and experience in testimony add tremendous value to complex cases. Some of their opinions have shaped case law.

My partners' areas of expertise include determination of fair value and fair market value, economic damages, intellectual property damages, and contractual issues such as material adverse effect clauses. Over the years, their valuation and damages opinions have been accepted by courts across the country.